Letter: Lack of enforcement leads to crime

Letter: Lack of enforcement leads to crime

Today’s headline features “Official calls mall incident wakeup call.” When hearing of the incident at the mall, I was not surprised. The complacency of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office will only allow future incidents. We don’t need more laws; we need the laws in place to be enforced.

I have worked with EBRSO officials for the past year to enforce traffic laws and most recently, pyrotechnics regulations in our 320-home subdivision. Repeated calls are always responded to with, “We are short-handed” or “We have our hands full with Gardere” or “It’s impossible to enforce this law” or “There are more important things for us to focus on than speeding and fireworks.”

Once the public learns there is not adequate enforcement or lack of enforcement, they will push the limit every time. Nonessential laws allowed to be broken only lead to more-serious problems. Is the entire city going to become a 70805? Our officials need to become more vigilant, and if the EBRSO needs more officers to enforce the current laws on the books, the mayor and the sheriff should work together to make sure there are more “feet on the street.”